


Worse things happen at sea

by towards_morning



Series: Primacy (yelling all the way down) [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Prime!Ratchet, Ratchet did not sign up for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 10:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19810750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards_morning/pseuds/towards_morning
Summary: Ratchet follows his naive friend Orion into his and Megatronus' attempt to reason with the council. It ends poorly, at least by his measure.In the aftermath, he needs a drink. Shame he doesn't get to nurse it alone.





	Worse things happen at sea

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off an idea spawned on Twitter regarding what, exactly, would happen were the matrix to insist Ratchet would be just the bestest Prime ever. See here: https://twitter.com/auto_thots/status/1146185096220815365
> 
> Me and the wonderful Harper had a lot of FEELINGS about this concept, and we're both writing stuff relating to it; I thought I'd start us off with how Ratchet responds to what I'm sure he thinks is the idiocy of the universe.
> 
> I'm primarily writing as Prime/Aligned continuity, taking from IDW where I feel like it.

On the one hand, Starscream was ready for anything life threw at him. He prided himself on that. Frankly, he would never gotten as far as he had without that same approach; his careful insinuation into the growing ranks of the Decepticon uprising was a meticulous piece of planning and he was rightfully proud of it. He had plans for any outcome; anything less and he would never have survived this far. Starscream was ready for whatever happened in the aftermath of the inevitably gunpowder-explosive meeting.  
  
But when Megatronus and his favourite Orion stalked back from their meeting with the council looking halfway stunned and entirely confused, well. Starscream couldn't pretend he'd expected that. He'd thought he had an idea what was coming, one way or the other. Apparently not.  
  
"They chose a Prime," said Megatronus, his optics halfway focused somewhere else. It was difficult to keep his faceplates neutral, but Starscream managed, looking expectantly at Orion as he schooled his expression.  
  
Orion smiled at Starscream, looking faintly dumbstruck under his characteristic calm. "Do you remember," he began quietly, awkward as ever, "-do you remember the friend of mine I introduced you to?" Orion had a tendency to fidget when unsure. Starscream saw him doing so and wondered.  
  
"I can't quite recall," he said, waiting for the other pede to drop. Orion smiled a little wider.  
  
Starscream wasn't sure what was going on- but the thunderstruck expression on Megatronus' face had him ready to learn on principle. He sat down and when Orion recounted what had happened, well. Starscream knew how to adapt.  


* * *

  
  
Ratchet, thought Starscream numbly. Ratchet.  
  
He had been prepared, he had thought, for most outcomes; for the council blasting them all to hell, for them bending the knee to Megatronus' might, and more than anything- the most likely outcome- for them compromising with Orion and making him... Prime, or just a representative, whichever, Starscream had plans regardless. But he hadn't been prepared for this.  
  
Starscream had met Orion's friend Ratchet. A few times. A mech who wouldn't be ignored, a package deal with anyone who wanted to meet the naive data-caste bot, ready to start a fight any time someone said something even mildly incendiary. Ready to start a fight with the whole fragging world, jaded before his time. Not what any of them had expected. Old before his time and uninterested in anything but a pathetic attempt to make a statement with that dead-end clinic of his. Entirely the opposite of anything any of them had planned for.  
  
"They offered me the Primacy," Orion explained, shaking his head as though this wasn't even worth considering. He'd never had any idea of his own worth, Starscream thought. Poor soft idiot. "But the moment they brought the Matrix out, with Ratchet there- we all felt it."  
  
Megatronus stayed silent, even when Starscream turned with a raised optic ridge. He looked uncertain in a way Starscream hadn't yet seen, even after vorns working together. Not even jealousy in his optics- and knowing Megatronus as well as Starscream did, that said something. Had Orion been the one, he'd had a plan to play that out. But none of them had seen this coming, and not even Megatronus' jealous streak knew what to do with such an upset.  
  
"What did he say?" asked Starscream, trying to adjust his own plans in the face of this- this nonsense.  
  
"Bugger," quoted Orion, his eyes sparkling.  


* * *

  
  
Starscream may have only spoken with Ratchet a couple of times, and only briefly, but he had always been a good judge of character. It was no surprise when he succesfully found the mech staring into his engex at the closest dive bar to Ratchet's quasi-illegal practice.  
  
"Hello," said Starscream, settling in next to the clearly despondent mech and accepting an overpriced drink with a haughty wave. Ratchet didn't so much as twitch an eyeridge, continuing to glare at his drink as though it had somehow offended him, while bots chattered in the background, oblivious to the supposed divinity in their midst. Starscream waited a moment, then signalled the bartender and ordered a second strong drink for Ratchet before leaning in.  
  
"So," he continued, voice low, "I hear some congratulations are in order, my Prime."  
  
His only response was a baleful stare and Ratchet downing whatever it was he had in front of him. While Starscream couldn't truly claim to know Ratchet, he knew enough to know that the other mech was no lightweight, so he screwed his own denta and downed his truly terrible drink. "Surely it isn't so bad," he said, in the silence that followed. Ratchet glared.  
  
"Frag off," was the only response Starscream got as he slid fully into the next seat at the bar. This was likely going to require more drinks. Starscream gestured as much to the bartender.  
  
"Come now," Starscream said, slipping into a practiced smile, "It can't be all that bad." Internally, he was scrabbling for a way to grasp onto Ratchet's misanthropic demeanour. This really would have been so much easier had either Megatronus or Orion gotten the damn privilege, like Starscream had planned for. Even so, Starscream was no quitter.  
  
"Can't it?" Ratchet accepted the first drink without so much as a thank you. Rude. "Let's recap. I go along with a frankly ridiculous plan cooked up by an insurgent and an idealist, purely to make sure my idiot friend doesn't do something really regrettable in front of the high and mighty of Cybertron, him being the idealist, throwing his lot in with the kind of mechs I'd frankly rather he didn't even know exist-" here, Ratchet broke off to glare at Starscream, before continuing, "-and what do you know, some stupid hunk of overcharged metal decides it likes my spark more than his. So now I have every person of note on the entire Primus-damned planet breathing down my neck, and you want to tell me it _isn't all bad?_ "  
  
Ratchet took the second long engex concoction Starscream had ordered, intended to last a while, and downed it in one. Impressive, really. Starscream couldn't help but stare as he swallowed it like low grade. If you had really pressed him, under torture, he might have admitted that Ratchet had always intimidated him. Just a little. Things like that were why.  
  
"You know," Ratchet continued, not talking to Starscream as much as he just wanted to say something aloud, staring at his now-empty glass. "You know, I've always known all this was scrap, really. Never had any time for it. I may not like Megatronus all that much, but he was right about one thing, and it's that all this nonsense is scrap. Primes and kings and stuff and nonsense." He huffed as he gestured for their bartender to bring them another. "But it's something, it's really something, to have them shove it in your chest and really understand just what a load of slag it is."  
  
Another drink appeared at Ratchet's behest. Starscream watched the other mech drink deep, and sipped his own, still desperately trying to adjust. The trouble was, Ratchet had no interest in hiding his disdain, or his lack of respect. More difficult than any contingency Starscream had, frankly.  
  
"But," Starscream eventually said, breaking the encroaching and awkward silence, "I suppose you have a way to do real... good, now, don't you?" He swallowed another measure of his own drink, hiding his unimpressed expression at the idea. Ratchet only laughed.  
  
"Sure," he said, rolling his optics. "Sure. I'll just do so much _good_ telling everyone the wonderful news about our saviour Primus, never mind that they'll want to take me out of my actual work saving mechs' lives." Ratchet's laugh could be more bitter than Starscream expected. It was almost endearing. When their drinks arrived, Ratchet downed it in one yet again. Primus but the mech had a tolerance to envy. How many was that now?  
  
Megatronus had never approved of Ratchet all that much. Starscream still didn't quite grasp why. The both of them were idealists at heart who clung to those ideals; in his way, Ratchet was more idealistic than that soft spark Orion. Angrier, but even more dedicated to hopeless causes. No wonder someone out there had thought he'd make a good Prime. Nobody was as insistent on lost causes as Ratchet was.  
  
Starscream pondered this, and raised his remaining engex. "Well," he said, mind whirring. "Well, to interesting times, Ratchet. Better you than me."  
  
Ratchet laughed again, still bitter. "Whatever you say, you conniving fragger."  
  
They drank. It could always be worse, Starscream thought. Tomorrow would put that to the test, but for now, they drank.


End file.
